THE PASSION ALTARPIECE

HISTORY 

The altarpiece of the Passion of Christ was originally located in a chapel founded around the year 1494 by Pedro Ibáñez de la Renteria and his wife Catalina de Gabiola and dedicated to the worship of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. The chapel gave on to the left side of the second section of the nave through an arch holding a figure of the Immaculate Conception, immediately opposite a chapel dedicated to St. Anne, which is where it stands today. Both chapels must have been very similar because, when authorisation was granted to build the second chapel in 1500, permission was granted with the condition that it was "neither larger, nor smaller" than the other.

The space it originally stood in disappeared when reformation work was carried out on the temple between 1881 and 1883, which was when the present ambulatory and portico were built. It was probably then when the altarpiece was relocated to the chapel of the Vera-Cruz family, where it has stood at least since the year 1934. After the Spanish Civil War, the altarpiece's architectural elements were partially repaired. The altarpiece has stood at its present location since 1958.